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The Big Picture (1988)
Director: Christopher Guest
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Actor-turned-director Guest presents a comic cautionary tale about a young film school graduate (Bacon) seduced into the compromises necessary to make his first big picture - a snowbound country-house drama that almost ends up as a teen comedy called 'Beach Nuts'. Bacon is engagingly naive as the starstruck director whose artistic pretensions are whittled away by a slimy studio exec (Walsh). He also becomes increasingly estranged from homely girlfriend (Longstreth) and best pal cinematographer (McKean), and carnal temptation comes in the heavenly form of a TV starlet (Hatcher) who sees him as a ticket to big screen fame. The movie references may strike some as in-jokey, but Guest's likeable film has enough jaundiced sideswipes and lighter chuckles to see it through its slacker spells. Even so, an increasing sense of bittiness creeps in, emphasised by a series of cameos: loopy Jennifer Jason Leigh, an Irish John Cleese, judge Roddy McDowall, and spaced-out agent Martin Short (whose contribution alone is worth the price of admission).Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Christopher Guest
Producer: Michael Varhol, Richard Gilbert Abramson
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Emily Longstreth, JT Walsh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Martin Short, Michael McKean, Kim Miyori, Teri Hatcher, Tracy Brooks Swope, Elliott Gould, Roddy McDowall, John Cleese, Eddie Albert full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 101 mins
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